


three

by bluexshift



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Coda, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e16 Stay With Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 14:59:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18346022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluexshift/pseuds/bluexshift
Summary: catarina's thoughts on family, and alec, or two times catarina overhears how much alec loves magnus and one time he shows her directly





	three

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't get this thought out of my head and now it's 6am and again, not quite sure what this is! but i hope y'all enjoy anyway
> 
> you can find me on twitter at [aglightwoodbane](http://twitter.com/aglightwoodbane) or on tumblr at [magnuslightwoodbane](http://magnuslightwoodbane.tumblr.com).
> 
> (i am very excited for these urls to become canon *eyes emoji*)

For most of her life, Catarina has been able to say that there were two people she’d drop everything for.

Oh, it would fluctuate through the centuries as she found and lost love, sure, but for so long her family was herself, Magnus, and Ragnor, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Magnus and Ragnor were her brothers, different in every way to untrained eyes (especially those that watched the pair bicker) but she knew that they were alike in all the ways that mattered. They loved each other and loved her as she loved them.

Then there came a time where there was, inconceivably, only one.

She and Magnus hadn’t really had a chance to really sit down and comprehend their loss, aside from the vigil they held at his home. Everything was happening so fast, too fast these days, and she watched as Magnus became embroiled in it more and more because he just never could turn a blind eye to those in need – and, though at the time she didn’t think Magnus himself had realised yet, he was falling in love again.

The whole Shadowhunter mess did bring her family back up to two, however.

She’d only ever voiced her dream for a child of her own on quiet nights, drinking wine with Magnus, knowing that he shared it just as strongly as she did. And now, she had Madzie, sweet and polite and kind, endlessly creative and eager for knowledge. Magnus had been amazing, allowing her to spend her days in the loft while Cat worked, and in between clients he’d been teaching Madzie how to control her powers and how to glamor her mark for when she started mundane school – as well as that she should never be ashamed of it. Magnus was undoubtably as thrilled as Cat was to have a child in their lives, and he was as wonderful an uncle as Catarina knew he would be as a dad. What she wasn’t prepared for, was for the Shadowhunter to be just as good.

Alec Lightwood, a mere boy of just 24, newly promoted Head of the Institute and Nephilim soldier that her oldest friend, her brother, had fallen head over heels for. She’d never seen Magnus quite as in love as this.

But Alec won her over in a remarkably short time with a combination of being himself, being good with Madzie, and most importantly, loving Magnus like he damn well deserved. She had her two, her daughter and her brother, and he finally had a lover to treat him right for at least as long as Alec lived.

She dropped everything when Magnus called in tears, running to see him cradling Alec’s limp, shallowly-breathing form, because she couldn’t let Magnus lose him so soon, because she would always drop everything for him.

She dropped everything once more when Alec’s sister called her; surprise becoming shock becoming fear becoming cool and practiced medical professional calm at just two words: “Magnus collapsed.”

She’s still in her scrubs as she runs the diagnostics through the Institute’s system – Isabelle having walked her through it, and despite the worry gripping her mind she fondly notes that the Lightwood siblings are as similar as they seem to be close. Results in hand, she makes her way to where Magnus lies in an infirmary cot, clad in a hospital gown with all makeup and jewellery gently and carefully removed by Alec – she would have offered to do it magically, but she thinks that Alec needed to do something to feel useful, and the gentleness with which he handled Magnus warmed her heart. Something gives her pause though, and she waits with hand resting on the door to the ward.

She can’t hear much, but she can hear Alec talking, and she wonders who else could possibly be in there – she knows that all the other youngsters Magnus has become acquainted with are waiting outside.

“…maybe we could… grow old together.”

_Oh._ He’s talking to Magnus. Catarina hears Alec say something else, but she can’t quite comprehend the words over the sheer amount of emotion weighing on her chest in this moment. This love that Alec holds is everything Magnus deserves, wants, needs, and the fact he’s found it in a Shadowhunter, a _Lightwood,_ it’s-

“Magnus, I love you. More than anyone in the world, and I’m sorry…”

She swallows her feelings down, and walks through into the ward.

 

Cat doesn’t mean to eavesdrop again, truly, but she’s heading by to check on Magnus now he’s awake when she stops at the sound of raised voices.

“Can you honestly say you like this?!” she hears Magnus say, nearly yell, despair and self-hatred dripping from his words the way it has far too often before. Alec’s instant yes is absolutely what she would expect from him at this point, but it’s no less validating, because _of course we still love you Magnus!_ she thinks.

She nods from outside the room as she only just barely hears Alec describe him as wise, and generous and brave and incredible, and she wishes she could stay longer to go in there and back up every single one of Alec’s points – but Alec’s still going as she sees Lorenzo enter the room from the other side and knows she’s missed her chance, this time.

 

She’s not had a chance to speak to Magnus properly yet – he’s been telling her he’s fine, because of course he is, and seems more avoidant than usual, which is why when Alec asks if they can meet for coffee, she jumps at the chance. There’s one café she likes that has a children’s play area, and she asks if they can meet there, since she can’t leave Madzie on her own, and Alec agrees instantly.

Taking a seat at one of the parents table next to the corner of the café that’s awash with colour, at odds with the rest of the buildings décor, she’s not waiting long before Alec strides up holding two flat whites and a hot chocolate. Madzie jumps for a hug, before scampering off and leaving her drink in favour of showing a girl a little younger than her how to play some make-believe game she’s invented. Alec takes the seat opposite Catarina, as she sips her coffee.

“You’re fidgety,” she comments.

“I- am I?” he sighs. “Sorry. I just- I slipped away from work, and. And Magnus doesn’t know I’m here either.”

She raises an eyebrow. “If you’re not telling him something, it better be good or I’ll tell him myself.”

For all the threat her voice contains, Alec huffs out a laugh, and Catarina is more confused than anything. “Yeah, I think I’ve got a good reason. I- after everything that happened yesterday, it made me realise that I’d… I’d been thinking about something without really realising I’d been thinking about it, you know? And I- gods, Cat, I can’t live without him. I really can’t. Whenever I think of my future, well. It used to be I wouldn’t _have_ one at all, but now, it’s Magnus, every way I can possibly imagine. There is no future for me without him in it, and I… wanted to make it… official?”

He breathes out and looks at her then, and she knows she must look as stunned as she feels.

“I want.. I want to propose, is- it’s not a bad idea, is it?” he asks, hurriedly.

“No! No, Alec, I’m just… you really love him, don’t you?”

“More than anything.”

She smiles at him. “It’s what he deserves. I don’t think anyone’s ever considered marrying him before.”

“Then they were idiots.”

She smiles at his words, at how hard he believes them. “When do you think you’ll do it?”

“Um. Tonight?”

Oh wow, she thinks. “He might not be in the best state for it right now,” she warns. “But I trust you to know the right moment for him, okay?” Alec nods. “Do you have a ring?”

“Actually, yeah, I think so. It’s uh… it’s a tradition for my people for the eldest child to give their _betrothed_ a ring bearing the family insignia. And I thought, maybe he might not want it, because I know Shadowhunter traditions are usually, uh… _terrible_ for Downworlders-“ Catarina laughs a little humourlessly at the truth in his words “-but also I know he’s worried sometimes that _I’d_ miss out on things as a result of being with him, and I wanna prove that that’s not true? I want to share my traditions with him and share in his, and it’s- the whole thing is a gesture, right, last names are important in our culture and to give that to someone-“

“-to give that to a Downworlder is revolutionary among your kind.” Catarina finishes for him, near breathless as Alec nods.

“I need to actually talk with him, after- IF he accepts, but uh,” Alec laughs. “I’m actually thinking Lightwood-Bane? Something that belongs to both of us and only us and, maybe-“

“And?” Cat raises an eyebrow in amusement as Alec swallows.

“And our children, hopefully.”

Any doubt Catarina had hidden in the recesses of her mind was obliterated with that one statement. Children. One of the things Magnus has always wanted above all else, that he could never have – that he _can_ have now, now that Alec is in his life and _wants_ to give that to him. “Well, if you’re looking for my approval, you have it.”

“Thank you,” he leans back and drinks from his mug, relief etched over his handsome face. “You’re his family, so it- it means a lot. And I guess, this would make us family in a way, so if that’s…something you’re okay with too, I-”

It’s in that moment that Catarina herself realises – she has dropped everything for _Alec_ , too, just as much as she always comes for Magnus. Her family has become three, now, and she never even noticed it happening.

She reaches out and rests her hand on Alec’s forearm to stop him speaking. “I guess we are.”


End file.
